A vial of the drug remdesivir is inspected at a Gilead manufacturing site in the US.Credit:Gilead Sciences
The virus has since evolved,and mounting evidence from lab tests suggests the two therapies – sotrovimab and casirivimab-imdevimab – have limited clinical activity against the latest iterations of the virus. As a result,they have also fallen out of favour with the US health regulator.
On Thursday,WHO experts said they strongly advised against the use of the two therapies in patients with COVID-19,reversing previous conditional recommendations endorsing them,as part of a suite of recommendations published in theBritish Medical Journal.
GSK and partner Vir Biotechnology’s sotrovimab – which has generated billions of dollars in sales and became one of the British drugmaker’s top sellers last year – was pulled off the US market by the US Food and Drug Administration in April.
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Given the United States had begun to question sotrovimab’s clinical effectiveness against Omicron in February,the WHO’s realisation is coming a little late,said Penny Ward,visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London.
“Now WHO has issued this recommendation,it will be interesting to see how many other countries align with it,” she said.
Regeneron and partner Roche’s antibody cocktail casirivimab-imdevimab has also generated billions in sales and was one of the US drugmaker’s top sellers last year.